Long Gone

It was the first day after the summer vacation. We were sitting on the grass. Me and my two best friends, Lacey and Ava were sitting together. We were talking about our homework. Actually, THEY were talking about our home work. I was just staring off into space. “Hey, loser!” I heard some one say. I looked up. My eyes got stuck on her. Wendy. She and her friends were laughing at us. “Would you stop picking on her?” Lacey shouted. “Yeah. What has she ever done to you?” Said Ava. “It’s okay. Let go of it.” I whispered to them. Wendy half-smiled and walked away, with her cronies following her. “Addison, why don’t you say something to her?” Lacey said in a hoarse whisper. What could I have possibly said? I was afraid of her. I don’t know why.

After a few minutes, we were in our class rooms. Bio period. My bio partner, Alexandria was sick and was not coming to school. So I was sitting alone. I told Mr. Brown about it. He told me that he was going to change the partners anyway. And guess what, I got Wendy. Wendy, the b****. She walked up to where I was sitting and dropped herself in the chair. She did an eye-roll. “Hey! Don’t you know staring is still considered rude?” She snapped. “I didn’t. Sorry.” I said. We got our assignment topics. We had to make a choice between ‘Spiders’ and ‘Birth Defects’. “We’re doing Spiders, okay?” It was an order not a request. “Whatever.” I wanted to do Birth Defects so bad. But I couldn’t help. And that’s when I decided to be ‘cold’ on Wendy. I wasn’t going to sacrifice my grades for a b****. I know, it was sorta late for me to realize that. But still, it was worth a shot. “Actually, you know what? I think we should do Birth Defects. Its way more interesting than the other one.” I eventually got up my courage. “But I like Spiders better.” She said simply. “Okay then.” I said. I controlled my urge to slap her. I picked up my books and walked out of the class room. I was angry. SO angry. When the school got over, Wendy came up to me. She was holding a big book, ‘The Amazing Spiders’. She dropped it on the table beside me and said, “I borrowed it from the library. Come over to my place. Within an hour.” “No. We’re not doing it at your place.” She was surprised by my answer. “Excuse me?” “You heard that right. YOU are coming to my house. We’ll do it there.” I picked up that book with both my hands and headed for home. I walked fast. And a big grin played on my mouth. I had to clean up my room before she came. I kept that book open on my table to show I was studying. But…a b**** will be b****. She arrived about two and a half hours later. “Ready?” She gazed around in my room, making me feel self-conscious. She had brought a big glass case which was packed in a bubble wrap. Its bottom was exposed, and I could tell that something creepy was in there, because I could see soil…a LOT of soil and some dried leaves scattered inside it. “What is…THIS?” My eyes on the box. She kept it on my table and untied the strings. Spiders. TWO, BIG, FAT and DISGHUSTING spiders. “Ta-da” She said flatly. “Why did you bring these here?”I asked and then I felt like an idiot. “We’re doing Spiders, remember?” She started wiping the glass with the bubble wrap. “Yeah…but I do have an internet connection!” “So?”She raised an eyebrow,” They’re my pets.” “Oh.” “Blinky and Steve.” She smiled at me. I laughed a little. “Well, what happened to your room?” She asked staring at the ceiling. “My mother.” I rolled my eyes.”It was years ago, when you last visited my house.” “Yeah.” She nodded and lowered her eyes to the floor, embarrassed maybe. “Its pretty good, you know?” “Yeah? Thanks.”

“I think we should start working now.” I quickly said. I didn’t want to go back in time when we used to be best friends. She wasn’t a bully then. She was my best friend. Wendy sat on the bed looking up for some pictures on my laptop. I dropped in my chair and started jotting down some important notes from The Amazing Spiders. Huh. An hour passed. “You found something?” “Sure. I found piles and piles of nothing!” She sighed heavily and yawned. “Wow. All we have this book! And these notes? …These notes aren’t enough” I shot her an irritated look. “We’ll do something.” She shrugged. “Do what?” “Well…something.” She shrugged again. “We have nothing. We’ve tried every…THING. You are doing nothing on this project…I’m the one who’s making all the effort!” “Really? At least I’ve tried! And all YOU’VE been doing is making those useless notes.”She said, ”You know what? You’ve changed. A lot. Maybe that’s why we’re not friends anymore. What made you change, Addison? Your friends? Your ‘new’ judgmental friends? I’ve always hated them. You b**** to them about me, don’t you? You were never like this. You were my friend. And you were better.” “Wendigo!” I yelled angrily. She shot me a surprised look. I was surprised myself. “Why are you mad at me? It was not my fault, okay?” She shot back, her voice defensive. There was a complete silence. “I’m…I’m not mad at you. Sorry for yelling.” I shook my head. “YOU’RE sorry for yelling? Well, its okay.”She shrugged,” And… its been a while since you last called me Wendigo.” She laughed. I laughed too. Then there was an awkward silence. “I think I have some encyclopedias in my cupboard.” I said. “Then what are we waiting for?” She lowered her feet to the floor and walked up to my cupboard. “Books! So MANY books!”She said sarcastically,”Where do you fit your clothes?” “My clothes? They’re in the other cupboard.”I said pointing behind me. She bent down and pulled out two big books. She kept them on the bed and brushed the dust off her hands. She put her hands on hips and sighed.

“Oh my god!” She exclaimed and ran up to her spiders. She blocked my view of them. She moved her hand as if she was taking something out and then she started to level the soil. “What happened?” I walked up to her. “They were fighting.” “What?” “Forget it.” She laughed and shook her head lightly. I half-smiled and gave her a doubtful look. But she ignored it. “Ugh. My back.” She kept her hands on her hips again and stretched. “I’m tired too.”I yawned. We laid down in my bed. I had a mirror on the ceiling. She laughed at it. “Why didn’t I notice it before?” “Shut up. My Mom said I could do my make up in bed.” I said and smiled, with my eyes half closed. She laughed even harder. I yawned. She turned her head to me and then back at the ceiling. There was a complete silence for a few minutes. But it wasn’t awkward. She suddenly sat up. I opened my eyes and yawned again. “Remember when…”She trailed off, smiling. “What?” “Remember when I puked on your bed?” I sat up slowly. “Yeah!” “And…and when I ate your lunch and then how Matty told you that it was me?” I said. “What? It was you?” She exclaimed. “What?”I said, confused,”Didn’t Matty tell you about it?” “Oh my god. I can’t believe YOU were the one who ate my lunch! What’s Matty got to do with this?” “Well…he was supposed to tell you!” “Why was HE supposed to tell me? I thought HE was the one who ate my lunch.” “NO!” I laughed. We both tossed of our heads and laughed wildly. She tried to say something at the same time and that made us laugh even harder. After some time, we became quite. The room stood silent again. I started playing with a thread hanging from my sleeve. “Hey, Addy?” She said. I was a little startled from the inside when I heard her call me that. “Yeah,” “What…”She shook her head as if trying to find correct words. “What made you change, really?” She said carefully. “What? What are you talking about?” I knew exactly what she was talking about. “You know...what happened?” I didn’t say anything for a minute. “You changed.” I said simply. “How?” “Well, we used to be best friends. You know that. And now we’re not. Because you changed.” I looked into her eyes. “How did I change?” “You went to Florida with your baseball team. And you never came back. At least not me.”I said. She looked at me, waiting for me to say further. “When you came back…Oh…I remember , how you told me to change the way I dressed. You know, I was surprised. But I never changed it. I thought you got carried away with your new friends.” “They were not my ‘new’ friends then. They were just…friendly to me.”She said in a defensive voice. “Maybe that’s what about them, attracted you.”I explained. “Yeah, well.” “We can’t go back to being friends.” I looked at her. “I know.” She said and gave me a sad smile. I felt nostalgic that night and I hardly slept. I just kept thinking about her. About us being friends. Best friends. I really missed her ‘friendliness’ toward me. And when she actually started being friendly, it was too late. We had moved on with our own lives. We had broken apart. Her friends made me feel neglected. And I probably never thought she felt the same. I miss her and maybe I still want her back. It’s just that…I can’t. She was long gone. She was never going to come back. When we were friends, she never tried to save our friendship. She never made an effort. Our friendship was going through rocks. She had completely changed. I always had to say sorry a couple of times without needing to say it in the first place. I really hate how our friendship ended especially when I don’t feel I did something wrong. But I loved her anyway. We don’t do sleepovers, we don’t go to movies together. Not anymore. But at least we can hold on to our memories. Now matter how alike we are, we are two very different people.

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